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Institute of Pacific Relations 


Preliminary Paper Prepared for 
Second General Session 


July 15-29, 1927 


Facing the Future of the Missionary 
Movement 
“By 


EDWARD H’HUME, MD., LL.D. ’ 





HONOLULU 
July, 1927 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Columbia University Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/facingfutureofmi00hume 


Facing the Future of the Missionary 
Movement 


1. THE PRESENT SITUATION 


1. Missions Are Being Challenged: The missionary movement is being 
vigorously challenged today in many quarters. Not only are men and 
women in Western lands raising basic questions as to the inherent right 
of individuals or groups to propagate such religious beliefs as they may 
hold, and as to the limitations, if any, that should be placed upon those 
who desire to propagate their religious beliefs; but not a few of our 
Oriental friends have started to state frankly their criticisms of missions ; 
witness recent magazine articles with such titles as: “An Oriental Looks 
at Christian Missions”,! or “China and Christianity”,? and many others. 


2. Some Underlying Factors: In studying the criticisms before us, 
which deal, admittedly, with the less happy phenomena of the mission- 
ary movement, two considerations must be borne in mind. The first is 
that missions grew up during a period of history when war was still 
trusted as the most decisive thing in existence. “Submit the dispute,” 
men said, “to the arbitrament of arms.” This warlike spirit in politics, 
never more potent in history than during the past three centuries, was 
often paralleled by an aggressive mood in religion, the two influences 
interacting to increase the desire for mastery. The second is that those 
who went as missionaries were conscious of being sent, “missi.” They 
catried an unusually developed sense of commission and felt that this put 
upon them a responsibility to achieve something and an equally great 
responsibility to report what they had achieved. This led, in many cases, 
to undue emphasis on statistics, particularly with regard to records of 
conversion. 


3. The Oriental Criticizes Frankly: The Oriental has been conscious 
for decades that his status was held to be inferior by many of the West- 
erners who came to propagate their religion. Today the extreme critics 
have become vocal to a degree. Some of their complaints are as follows: 

(1) The missionary is apt to regard himself as a superior being. Not 
only does he think of his message as incomparable, but his attitude is 
often one of disdain. He still claims far too many of the positions of 
administrative control in Church, school and hospital. 

(2) The missionary is often unsympathetic. He does not share deeply 
enough in the suffering, the griefs and the disappointments of the people 
among whom he labors. He often complains about things that affect his 
own well-being without appreciating fully how much more those suffer 
in whose midst he works. 


1 Cornelius; in Harper’s Magazine, March, 1927. 
2Hu Shih; in Forum, July, 1927. 


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(3) The missionary, whether as teacher or preacher, frequently over- 
looks the significance of Oriental cultures and religions. He compares 
these unfavorably with his own. He brings his Scriptures, his classics, 
his textbooks, his maps, his methods in Church or college, and assumes 
that these will be acceptable. Important as they are, adapting them to 
local environments is essential. 

(4) The missionary does not sufficiently trust the people among whom 
he works. He acts as if they were financially irresponsible; what is 
more, as if they would never become able to manage their own finances 
in Church and educational work. 

(5) The missionary commonly hesitates to entrust authority of any sort 
even to those whom he has trained. He is, therefore, likely to find him 
self, in such countries as China, suddenly confronted with a situation 
where he must surrender authority. Because men and women have not 
been taught the use of power, he fears disintegration for the work he 
has wrought so faithfully. 

(6) The missionary has too often related himself unwisely to the poli- 
tical situation. Sometimes, with friendly intent, he has defended those 
involved in legal difficulties, while at other times he has withheld sym- 
pathy from national movements that sought to establish or to regain 
a country’s rightful independence, 

(7) The missionary board, back of the missionary, has, in many 
instances, thought of itself as permanently in control of the activities of 
those it has sent out. It has hesitated to transfer authority into the 
hands of local organizations in the Orient. 


(8) The organization which the missionary has built up is likely to 
prove far too complex for the Orient. Many of its buildings are too 
extensive and too costly; its institutional plans and administrative mach- 
inery are often too cumbersome to be easily naturalized. 


(9) The missionary organization is, in a great many cases, entirely too 
Western in its atmosphere. It has been created by Westerners who have 
not understood the East and who have not learned to adjust their own 
systems to an Eastern environment. 


(10) The missionary organization appears to be intimately related to 
the politics of Western lands. Each transfer of property must be regis- 
tered at a consulate; every missionary’s movements must be controlled 
by Western consular officials; in times of trouble the consul is expected 
to demand protection or indemnity. ‘The common people are apt to 
gain the impression of an intimate connection between missions and 
governments. 

(11) The missionary movement as a whole appears to be dependent, in 
many instances, upon gunpowder and armed force. Many are pointing 
out that this seems quite foreign to the spirit of Jesus as illustrated 
in the Sermon. on the Mount 

Now it is undoubtedly true that such criticisms as these emanate from 
a minority in the Orient. By far the larger part of those in touch with 
missions are genuinely friendly to the missionaries in their midst and 
deeply appreciative of the constructive work they have done. At times 
of national upheaval, however, as in the case of China today, criticism 
is apt to burst out with unusual violence. During the storm of a poli- 
tical revolution, with excitement running high, even the man on the street, 
ordinarily so friendly, may begin to find fault with missionaries for the 


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inconsistencies in their lives. The communist, finding opportunity to pro- 
claim his doctrines, is apt to call out that religion is nothing but an 
opiate for the soul, while the materialist asserts that science is displacing 
religion, which men now believe, he says, to be little more than a super- 
stitution, well enough adapted to simple folks in uneducated and uncul- 
tured social groups. At such a time, too, the nationalist may insist that 
the missionary teacher is restraining his pupils or his employes from 
participation in current patriotic movements. Such a sudden breaking 
loose of a storm of complaint is not to be wondered at. In the political 
sphere, the insistence on “self-determination” is becoming widespread, 
leading to much unrestrained abuse and conflict. The issues are serious 
and require thoughtful study. 


4. The Occidental Reflects: Hitherto many Western Christians had 
taken missions for granted. They had become accustomed to maps of 
the world in which the Orient was represented in solid black and the 
Occident as wholly white, with a few white rays penetrating the dark- 
ened areas and beginning to dispel the universal blackness. Many are 
beginning to reflect on the phenomena now taking place, and realize that: 


(1) The missionary movement has developed during, and been an ac- 
companiment of, the great era of colonial expansion on the part of West- 
ern powers. 

(2) It has been an outgrowth of and, often, an expression of, the’ idea 
of the Church militant. 


(3) It has often carried a very dogmatic, creedally formulated message. 


(4) Some of the missionaries of this era have been true iconoclasts, not 
only literally breaking down idols, but also attacking with violence 
whatever they regarded as a sign of religious opposition. 

(5) The missionary movement has built up in the West a vocabulary 
of antithesis. We were Christians; those of the Orient were heathen. 

(6) There has been rejoicing, both private and public, in the political 
openings that have made it possible for Christianity to enter one land 
after another, even when the entrance of missionaries into a given area 
has been practically forced. When missionaries suffered persecution or 
even death, our political agents usually demanded heavy indemnities. 


(7) The West has, in general, been quite unaware of the spiritual 
values in other religions, and too often unappreciative of their quest for 
eternal truth. 

(8) Our missionaries have had far too little intimate fellowship with 
the people of the countries among whom they have worked. Too often 
they have isolated themselves. Too often they have been so busy pro- 
claiming their own message that they have failed to hear the desires 
and complaints and, in particular, to discover the deeper spiritual feel- 
ings that those about them would have liked to express. 

(9) The missionary attitude has been too often that of “doing for” 
instead of “working with.” 

Now as the West thus reflects, it appreciates that such states of mind, 
such outward conduct and attitudes, while often regrettable, were a pro- 
duct of the period. We ourselves, as well as our missionaries, were part 
and parcel of our medieval conception of life. We lived in a military 
age; we had cultivated an attitude of superiority. When our missionaries 
went to the Orient, they were not apt to shed these elements derived 
from their environment. 


On the other hand, unless there had been deep conviction with regard 
to their message, our missionaries would not have cared to give their 
lives to an extraordinarily difficult task. Unless our early missionaries 
had been possessed by a unique devotion, they would not have dared to 
face the perils incident to their endeavor. It was the union of conviction 
and of devotion that enabled these pioneer workers to stand firm under 
the difficult conditions they faced during this war-trusting period, which, 
we now begin to hope, is coming to an end. 


5. A Changing Spirit: Certain clear signs are to be seen that a new 
day is at hand. 

(1) The spirit of science is compelling us to be tolerant, to listen to 
the other man’s opinion, to test our own work in the laboratory, and to 
cultivate a spirit of humility in the presence of the eternal facts of the 
universe. 

(2) Realizing that religion is the quest of the soul for God, we have 
begun to discover the significance of the spiritual search in Buddhism, 
in Hinduism, and in other Oriental religions. 

(3) We are recalling that. Jesus was_an Oriental figure and that the 
traits of character he emphasized in the Sermon on the Mount were, 
many of them, more readily understood by the Oriental than by the 
Occidental. The man from India, China and Japan may, therefore, find 
in Jesus much that had never been understood by the West. 


(4) We are recognizing that if Jesus is to influence the Orient, he must 
become naturalized there. He can scarcely come close to the Oriental 
mind if he continues to be regarded as a foreigner. 

(5) We are beginning to see that the work of missions is likely to — 
consist more largely in interpreting the life and message and _ sacrifice 
and spirit of the Founder of the Christian religion, rather than merely 
in philanthropic activities, however significant these may be. Thought- 
ful persons throughout the Orient record their deep appreciation of the 
educational and medical contribution made by Western missions. With- 
out them, the revolutionary changes in the social structure, now so con- 
spicuous everywhere, would scarcely have come about in the way they 
have. And yet, as to the future, the Orient is likely to call for effective 
interpreters of the religious spirit, rather than for technical skill only. 

(6) We are discovering that the missionary boards in the Occident 
and the various Church constituencies that support them must be 
awakened to a new attitude of confidence in the Orient, of determination - 
to minimize denominationalism, and of willingness to pledge aid in men 
and money to indigenous bodies that stand ready to take up the work 
brought into being by missionaries. 


il. POSSIBLE OUTCOME OF THE PRESENT SITUATION 


1. Christianity may cease to be a force in the Orient. The record 
of the Nestorian missionary approach to China in the 7th century, fol- 
lowed by its total disappearance within a couple of hundred years, due 
in large measure to religious compromise, indicates the possibility of 
failure in a religious movement. The Franciscans who came in the 13th 
century, led by John of Monte Corvino, failed, similarly, to leave a mark 
in China. The ultra-foreign character of their work was undoubtedly 
their undoing. A third and a very promising missionary movement in 


6 


China was started by the Jesuits late in the 16th century, but it, too, 
after 140 years of progress, encountered proscription and faced possible 
extermination. The Emperor had been offended, there were controversies 
between contending orders, and the prospect that Christianity might again 
disappear was very real. 


The crisis facing the missionary movement in China today is of a 
different sort, but even more basic and perplexing. Some of the reasons 
for this crisis grow out of causes indicated in the earlier paragraphs of 
this statement. In China, as elsewhere, Christianity may lose all vital 
influence, unless the missionary movement of the new day revises its pro- 
gram and methods. 


In those countries where a strong nationalism has arisen, it is not un- 
natural that political leaders should view with concern, if not with sus- 
picion, the presence in their midst of foreigners who advocate methods 
devised in other lands and adapted to different civilizations. The prim- 
ary question today is as to whether the missionary movement is really 
making it possible for the message of Christianity to become naturalized. 
If so, it will endure. 


2. Materialism May Become Widespread. The disappearance of Christ- 
ianity from one land or another may be followed by a setting up, even 
though for but a limited time, of materialism as a dominant philosophy. 
In Russia, governmental authorities would like to see religion banished. 
The continued observance of religious forms in that land and the wide- 
spread clinging to worship at the shrines everywhere gives evidence of 
the way in which the religious instinct is basic in the human soul. Of 
late, apostles of modern materialism have visited the Orient and pro- 
claimed their gospel. They have had wide hearing and have made a 
lasting impression in many quarters by their assertion that the West is 
materialistic and that it cares little today for Christianity. 


3. Loss Of Religious Cooperation. More serious even than that Christ- 
ianity should appear to have lost its influence in this land or that, and 
more serious even than that it should be replaced by materialism, is the 
danger that the West may lose the opportunity to cooperate with the 
Orient in the spiritual realm. China, for example, has reached a stage 
where she is unwilling to have her soul saved for her by the West: What 
a calamity if the West should lose the opportunity to work alongside 
of her in spheres other than mechanical and commercial! Living alone 
religiously, China might become so chauvinistic in her inner religious 
attitude as to prevent the normal growth of her spiritual being. No 
country can afford to give up the sense that others are working with her 
in the realm of religion as in that of politics, of commerce and of science. 


ill, AN APPROACH TO A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MISSIONS 


1. Whatever our conclusions as to the ethics of religious propagation 
in countries other than our own, and whatever we find as to the desire 
for religious interchange between East and West, four requirements 
stand out as fundamental in formulating a new philosophy of missions. 

(1) We must have a new interpretation of Christianity and of its 
founder. Clearly neither Western nor Eastern peoples are likely to be 
interested much longer in Christian dogma, or even in medical and 
educational work merely, important though these philanthropic activities 


7 


may be. The Orient is asking today for a frank statement about and 
an honest interpretation of the person, the teaching and the spirit of 
Jesus. The Oriental will himself be able increasingly to establish and 
conduct the schools he needs and to administer the hospitals he needs. 
From the West he is sure to desire something deeper. It is more than 
probable that the early Buddhist missionaries from India to China 
secured their foothold by the humble life they lived and the sincerity 
with which they taught the truths of their master. Clearly enough, their 
religious message had no accompaniments of militarism, of commerce, 
or of modern science. 


(2) We must seek a new understanding of the spiritual values in 


Oriental religions. They, too, are engaged in a quest. They, too, are 
attempts to find a way of life. Theirs is an honest search for Eternal 
Truth, Theirs are earnest endeavors to find God. The founder of the 
Christian religion must have had this in his consciousness when he said: 
“T came not to destroy but to fulfill.” 


We need to understand a great deal more about the major religious 
emphases in China and India. In China, for example, to select three of 
the major words in its religious vocabulary: hsiao, ho, jen; the first 
lays emphasis on the filial relationship; the second, on spiritual harmony ; 
the third, on what we may call for lack of a better term, humanity. 
The Chinese character- jen, humanity, is that of a man beside two hori- 
zontal strokes, the upper representing heaven and the lower our earthly 
existence. Humanity is the thing that links the eternal with the tem- 
poral. 


(3) We must secure, as representatives of Christianity in the Orient, 
men who have accepted the new conception of Christianity, who are 
willing to seek a new understanding of the Oriental religions and who 
seek to bring these two into harmony. They must approach the Orient 
as humble students of religion, and must remain students all their lives. 
They must share consciously with their Oriental brothers in a co-operative 
search for Eternal Truth. They must be unassuming, co-operative fel- 
low-workers in a spiritual task, working in genuine fellowship, sharing 
with their Oriental colleagues in success and failure, joy and sorrow. 
They must seek no office, desire no authority, but must join, rather, with 
those of other religious faiths both in seeking fuller understandings of 
religious truth and in seeking to spiritualize the entire social order. 


(4) There must be messengers from the Orient who bring a religious 
message to the West. They must not only give us an understanding of 
religion as the Oriental sees it, but must be men who will enlarge and 
enrich our conceptions of Christianity. 


2. For some, this new approach to a philosophy of religion will be 
an easy achievement. They have already lived in the atmosphere of 
understanding and appreciation. For many in Western lands, however, a 
process of education will be needed so that they may better understand 
this enlarged view of life, and, grasping it, throw their influence in the 
direction of establishing it. They must be willing to think of all re- 
ligious endeavor as a common task, providing, when needed, financial 
support for the day’s work without hesitancy. Where confidence exists 
in those who lead a movement, material support cannot be withheld. 
Their emphasis must be, not so much on the word devolution, as on the 


8 


thought of recognition that India and China must naturally take leader- 
ship and control in the field of religion. 


IV. SOME OF THE STEPS IN THE PROCESS 


Given the new philosophy of missions hinted at above, men and women 
from different lands will meet and outline a program of procedure with 
such emphasis on method as is congenial to their setting. A few simple 
steps suggest themselves: 

1. Not organization but fellowship is required. Men and women 
whose attitude transcends narrow nationalism must be set free to move 
about in Occident and Orient to develop a sense of comradeship. Their 
task will not be to create bodies with officers and by-laws, but rather 
to help citizens of different nations to meet each other and to under- 
stand each other’s religious approach. 

2. Administrative organization must be simplified. Fewer officers and 
more co-operating workers, less machinery and more of the spirit of 
the common task, will be called for. 

3. The new spirit and the new attitude that unite those thus engaged 
in religious activities will have to find statement in the simplest terms, 
so that others may understand something of the process and of the goal. 

4. So far as possible, the activities hitherto conducted by Westerners 
will secure Oriental leadership. If committees are formed for church 
or school or orphanage, Westerners may or may not be asked to serve 
thereon. Their services must be at the disposal of the Oriental leaders 
who need their aid as counsellors or professional workers. 

5. Unadapted and. unadaptable Westerners will naturally drop out 
of the picture... Those who lack pliability of temperament and buoyancy 
of spirit will not understand how to share in this new endeavor. 

6. Mission boards in the Occident and missions in the Orient will 
come, more and more, to put their property, as they put their personnel, 
at the disposal of indigenous bodies. Initiative and leadership, which 
have hitherto been repressed, will be given all possible encouragement, 
and the material goods which the West has been able to bring together 
will be at the service of the common task. 

7. Mission boards in the Occident will soon discover that their largest 
function will be to act as co-operating groups, who offer financial and 
professional aid, and who provide, above all, an understanding personnel 
for the task in the Orient. 


The above statement records an attempt to think through a few of 
the aspects of the present situation, facine frankly the criticisms of the 
missionary movement and reflecting on their significance and on certain 
present dangers. It records a conviction that the new dav needs a new 
philosophy for missions, as for other activities of human life. If 
religion is a universal human instinct, its origin in the human soul is the 
same in the Orient as in the Occident. The Occident needs to learn the 
lesson that the religious horizons of the human race are not broadened 
by dominance and assertiveness so much as by a dedication of men as 
brothers to a spiritual quest. Missions reconstructed on this under- 
standing of their task are likely to find permanent welcome from the 
Orient. 





